The Icemark Chronicles: The Cry of the Icemark (7 page)

They caught up with the surgeon and his assistant just as they were about to turn off the road into the tangled network of forest tracks, and reined back to a walk. Thirrin’s face glowed with the tingling cold and, not wanting the horses to get chilled, she urged the quiet mules of the doctor and his assistant to a brisk trot as they headed for Oskan’s cave.

The forest was darkly brilliant with deep shadow and dappled sunshine, which pooled amid the rich browns and flame
reds of the autumnal leaves. The busy sounds of squirrels echoed through the branches as they gathered stores for the coming winter. Thirrin was so intent on trying to catch sight of the little red creatures as they dived through the forest canopy that she was almost taken by surprise when the horses started to climb the steep track that led to the cave.

She forced herself to concentrate on the broken and stony path, not wanting to arrive at Oskan’s with a lame horse. As they drew near the end of the pathway, she looked up to see the tall boy waiting in the entrance of his cave.

He raised his hand in greeting, then, catching sight of Thirrin, he bowed his head formally. “Welcome to my home,” he said politely as they all dismounted. “Your man is healing well.”

“I’ll decide that, thank you, young man,” said the surgeon stiffly. “Where is the patient?”

Oskan led them into the cave, which smelled sweetly sharp with the scent of drying herbs and spices. The injured man lay on a low cot next to the fire. As they entered, he raised himself onto one elbow and would have climbed to his feet if the surgeon hadn’t pressed him back down. “Before you go anywhere, I want to examine your wounds.” He stripped away the clean bandages and stared aghast at the neat stitches that held the edges of the deep gash together. “I heard rumors that you’d done this! What gives you the right to endanger this man’s life?”

“Nothing and no one,” answered Oskan, sounding puzzled. “I stitched his wound to help it heal.”

“You think you can cure by adding further injuries?”

Thirrin had watched this clash in silence, knowing that it would come. After all, she herself had been horrified by Oskan’s methods until the old soldier had told her he’d seen it done before by White Annis. She looked at the injured man
now and was amazed at the difference in him. He was obviously no longer in pain, and from where she was standing, the wound seemed to be healing cleanly. There was also no sign of any fever. All in all, she had to acknowledge that Oskan’s treatment seemed to be working.

“He looks well enough to me,” she said to the surgeon.

The man glanced at her with barely concealed resentment. “Forgive me, My Lady, but you cannot know that, and neither can this … boy!” He spat the last word with contempt. “I studied for five years under the greatest masters of anatomy and surgery in the Southern Continent; I served another four years in their hospitals and for a further ten years after that as a highly respected practitioner before your Royal Father summoned me to Frostmarris to take up the post of Chief Surgeon to the King! Compared to my experience and expertise, what can this young son of a witch know?”

“Enough to cleanly heal one of the deepest gashes I’ve ever seen,” Thirrin answered pertly.

The surgeon’s look spoke volumes. “In my vast experience as a medical practitioner I’ve seen far, far worse
and
healed them!”

“By luck or judgment, do you think?” Thirrin asked, her temper beginning to rise at the man’s arrogance.

The surgeon’s anger was held in check only by Thirrin’s position as his Royal Patron’s daughter. “My lady’s judgment is clouded by her lack of knowledge in my field. A lack that is only equaled by this boy’s.” He turned to Oskan with a massive contempt. “Did you even bleed him?”

“I thought the bear had bled him enough already,” Oskan answered calmly.

“And how exactly do you expect to purge his body of the evil humors from the bear’s claws?”

“I don’t know anything about
humors.
I just cleaned the wound and stitched it up.” Oskan was visibly controlling his temper now.

“Then it will fester, the man will die, and you will have killed him just as surely as the animal that attacked him!”

Thirrin stepped closer to the stable hand and peered at the neatly stitched wound. “It looks perfectly all right to me. Healing nicely with no sign of any infection.” She turned to the two soldiers of her escort, both middle-aged veterans who’d had long experience of battle wounds. “What do you two think?”

They agreed it seemed to be healing well and stared unwaveringly back at the enraged surgeon. “None of you know anything about the process of such injuries. Either he comes back to the city now and is thoroughly bled or he will die!”

“I’d much prefer he stayed here for at least another three days,” said Oskan quietly. “With the permission of the Princess, of course.”

“It seems to me we should ask your patient what he thinks,” said Thirrin. “After all, it’s his arm.” She turned to the man and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

The stable hand had been staring from one member of the party to the other, completely overawed by the great people who were arguing over him, but at last he managed to stutter, “I think I’d like the witch’s son to carry on with his treatment.”

“That’s
Oskan
Witch’s Son to you,” said Thirrin sharply.

“This man can’t possibly know what’s best for him!” the surgeon protested. “He barely knows what day it is, let alone has the ability to make a medical decision.”

“I
do
know what day it is,” said the injured man, stung to anger. “It’s Thor’s day. And I know something else, too. Last year I fell off my horse and gashed my knee. It was about a quarter the size of this wound, but it still managed to fester,
gave me a fever, and took about a month to get to the state this wound took only a couple of days to reach! “ He fell silent, suddenly aware that he had everyone’s attention. But then he plucked up courage and went on. “I was out hunting for the King, so His Majesty sent this man — his surgeon — to treat me. My missus said he nearly killed me and that she could have done better with old wine and clean bandages like her mam used to use.”

“Oh, this is absurd. I don’t have to defend my clinical methods to ignoramuses.”

“No, you don’t,” Thirrin cut in coldly. “The man obviously has chosen to trust the methods of Oskan Witch’s Son. So I suggest you leave the ignoramuses here and return to Frostmarris.”

“But, My Lady, the King directed me to —”

“Examine the patient,
which you have done. You’ve carried out your duty, so I now give you permission to return to the city and your other patients, who are so fortunate in having your vast expertise.”

Never having been dismissed by a thirteen-year-old girl before, it took the surgeon a few moments to gather his dignity, but then he turned and swept from the cave, collecting servant and mule en route.

Thirrin watched him go, then turned and warmed her hands at the fire. “Well, shall we get the patient back to the inner cave?” she said brightly, helping the man to his feet. “And you men can attend the horses,” she added to her escort, who saluted and went outside. Oskan took his patient’s good arm and led him back to the bed along the narrow corridor that connected the complex of caverns.

It was while she was left alone for a few minutes that
Thirrin’s mask started to slip. What was she thinking of? She was suddenly and horribly aware that she’d effectively got rid of everyone but Oskan, who would soon return to the hearth where she was sitting all alone! If she had a
situation
to deal with, such as the surgeon and the injured huntsman, she was fine — even domineering — but when she was on her own, or it was something about herself, that’s when everything nearly always went wrong.

She almost panicked. Being alone with a boy meant she was bound to blush and stutter and make a complete fool of herself!

If she acted quickly, she’d be able to cross to the mouth of the cave and call the men back in; at least that way there’d be others around her to distract attention. But then she heard Oskan coming back from the inner cave, and she abandoned the idea. Far better to look like a princess in control — even if she didn’t feel it — than be caught rushing around and squeaking like a fool.

Thirrin tried to calm herself, and had to call on all her training as a warrior as she prepared to deal with her embarrassment. But in the end she carried it off quite well. She was hardly blushing at all when Oskan reappeared. She took deep, steadying breaths and managed to keep her voice relatively level.

“You’d better hope he doesn’t develop fever or the green rot now, Oskan, otherwise our gentle surgeon will do his best to have you driven out.”

The boy drew up a stool and sat next to her before he replied. “I’d hope he wouldn’t get sick, anyway,” he said and, grinning one of the brightest smiles Thirrin had ever seen, he went on, “but especially so now. I want to prove that pompous moron well and truly wrong.”

Thirrin smiled in return, slowly beginning to relax again, and decided to forgive him for not asking permission to sit in her presence. “Is there any doubt?”

“Things can always go wrong in healing.”

“Do you expect them to?”

He grinned again. “No.”

There was something about the boy’s calm presence that helped Thirrin to feel unusually at ease, and she bravely decided to ask him about any other skills he might have learned from his mother. “Can you do magic?”

He took so long to reply she thought she’d offended him in some way, but at last he said, “I don’t really know what you mean by magic. I can read the weather, but any shepherd can do that; I know the ways of the animals, but again so does anyone who lives in the forest….”

“Can you see the future?”

He shrugged. “The Sight, you mean? Sometimes … perhaps. But never to order and never the whole of any situation. There’s always a mystery, always something we’re not meant to know.”

Thirrin nodded, her suspicions confirmed. “Can you draw down lightning?”

Oskan paused, startled by her directness. “I’ve never tried. Seems like a silly idea to me. You could be hit.”

“I never thought of that.” Thirrin was now beginning to feel so relaxed in this boy’s company that her contradictory nature decided to take control, and she immediately began to feel hot and uncomfortable. Complete social humiliation was now threatening. She stood and made ready to go. Being Princess, with the royal right to ignore conventions of leave-taking, often had its advantages. “How long will you keep my servant?”

“Another three or four days,” he answered. Then looking at her standing stiffly in her full Princess mode, he added, “My Lady,” and bowed.

She strode to the entrance of the cave and nodded imperiously to the soldiers of her escort, who immediately led up her horse. “I’ll return in four days, then.”

Oskan nodded. “He should be ready to ride by that time.”

Thirrin swung easily into the saddle and, being firmly hidden behind her Princess facade, she felt brave enough to hold out her hand. Perplexed, Oskan just stared at it stupidly, and she thought she was going to have to embarrass herself excruciatingly by demanding that he kiss it. But then he took her fingers and pressed them to his lips — for much longer than she thought was strictly necessary.

“In four days, Oskan Witch’s Son.”

“In four days, My Lady. I’ll look forward to it.”

She rode off at the head of her escort, suddenly feeling a need to unsling her shield from the saddle and carry it on her arm.

T
hirrin sat in her room, staring out her window over the garden below. She was supposed to be doing her geography homework, but a deep sense of excitement filled her to bursting point and she couldn’t concentrate. It was the season of Yule. The servants had brought holly, ivy, and the sacred mistletoe into the Great Hall and hung it from the roof beams so that the place looked like a huge indoor forest and the spicy scent of evergreen foliage pervaded everything. The housecarls had selected the biggest log they could find, hauled it through the city, and then stored it safely in the courtyard of the royal fortress, ready for the triumphant procession to the hearth on Yule Night. Everything had that excited, breathless atmosphere that the festival always brought with it. The candles burned brighter, music sounded sweeter, and even the most ordinary of actions were steeped in the anticipation of the season.

But for Thirrin there was an added excitement: Her birthday fell at Yule, and she would reach fourteen, the Coming of Age for girls. Everyone knew she was heir to the throne, but on this day Redrought would present her officially to the house
carls, who would proclaim her their Princess and swear loyalty to her. At fourteen she would be considered old enough to marry, and in the past many royal princesses had been forced to do just that, as a means of sealing an alliance or confirming some great lord in his position of power. They’d had little choice, but Redrought was different, and anyway, times had changed. No one was interested in an alliance with the little icebound kingdom far to the north. For centuries the Icemark’s survival had depended on the power of its armies and the cunning of its kings and queens. And in Redrought the country had a happy combination of foxlike guile and the fighting power of a wild boar.